Technical Operations Director

Technical Operations Director

The Department of Administration's (Admin) Division of Enterprise Applications (DEA) is seeking a Technical Operations Director to join the team. We are in growth mode, and it is an exciting time to be a contributing member to SC Enterprise Information System (SCEIS)! SCEIS is the backbone of our business processes and ultimately empowers decision makers to improve government for the citizens.

If you enjoy working at the intersection of people, process, and technology, and are motivated by a fast paced, multi-tasked and transforming environment, then this position could be for you! In this role you will be accountable for the stability, reliability and controlled evolution of enterprise application platforms, including SAP and integrated systems. Provide single-point operational leadership across Quality Control, Service Desk and Change Management, ensuring that delivery velocity, system stability and governance controls are balanced and enforced.

Ensure systems are stable, performant, and supportable across production and non-production environments.

You will report directly to the Chief Technology Officer and be responsible for coordinating operational efforts across teams within DEA.

This position is onsite in Columbia, SC.

• Lead and support staff through coaching, training, and performance development. Streamline workflows while implementing management policies and organizational initiatives. Foster a positive, team focused environment.
• Act as a key partner to the Chief Technology Officer and the Division Directors in the agency’s broader transformation initiatives, supporting modernization of systems, processes, and practices. Serve as a trusted advisor to senior leadership on operational risks, opportunities, and priorities. Assess current operations and staffing, identify gaps, and implement improvements that increase reliability, responsiveness, and accountability.
• Establish and enforce ITIL-aligned operational governance across Quality Control, Service Desk, Change Management, and Release Management. Define and maintain operational policies, standards, service levels and control point.
• Ensure that operational controls are embedded into Agile and Dev Ops delivery models and that operational processes are documented, repeatable and audit-ready.
• Provide executive oversight of the enterprise quality strategy. Ensure testing, automation and regression coverage are risk-based, repeatable and embedded in release cycles. Validate that quality metrics are used to block or defer unsafe releases. Ensure production issues are analyzed for root cause, not just resolution.
• Oversee the SCEIS Service Desk to ensure consistent intake and triage, SLA adherence and clear escalation paths. Ensure incidents are categorized, tracked and analyzed for trends. Drive reduction of repeat incidents through Known Error Management, knowledge articles, and problem management coordination.
• Define and report enterprise operational KPIs including system availability, incident trends, support requests, change success rate, defect levels and release quality. Provide executive level dashboards and release go/no-go recommendations. Ensure metrics are used for decision making.
• Own and enforce the Change and Release Management framework. Ensure changes are properly assessed for risk, tested and approved, and scheduled and communicated. Chair or delegate for CAB and release readiness reviews. Balance speed of change with system stability and provide final authority on when and how changes reach production.
• Coordinate across functional teams, development teams, architecture, security, infrastructure and Basis and the Program Management Office. Ensure operational impacts are assessed early in project and product life cycles. Embed operational readiness into design reviews, project plans and cutover activities.

• A bachelor's degree in a related field and at least five(5) years managing IT Operations using ITIL-based Service Management practices. Relevant experience may substitute for the bachelor's degree on a year for year basis.

• Ability to…